The situation didn't immediately change, but I no longer felt alone.

“That would be something very different. You wouldn’t have the violence. You wouldn’t have to call the cops all the time. You wouldn’t have to worry about protecting yourself all the time - especially at nighttime.”

“I was locked up in the Fairbanks Correctional Center facing my 5th felony. I had just been extradited from King County Seattle, Washington where I was picked up for my warrant in Alaska. I was at a point in my life where nothing I had tried worked. I was ready for something new..."

The situation didn't immediately change, but I no longer felt alone.

“That would be something very different. You wouldn’t have the violence. You wouldn’t have to call the cops all the time. You wouldn’t have to worry about protecting yourself all the time - especially at nighttime.”

Struggle to move from couch surfing and camping, to sleeping every night in the same bed at the Mission, to having your own bed to sleep in. Struggle to move from existing on the charity of others and odd jobs to supporting yourself. Struggle to move from signing your kids over to their stepmom for one more year to fighting for the right to have them in your life.

“I was locked up in the Fairbanks Correctional Center facing my 5th felony. I had just been extradited from King County Seattle, Washington where I was picked up for my warrant in Alaska. I was at a point in my life where nothing I had tried worked. I was ready for something new..."

Celeste moved here from Anchorage because she had quit one job for a better job, and then the better job was not funded. She had savings and made it through a couple of months, lived with her mom in Anchorage for another couple of months, looking for work all the while, and then moved to Fairbanks at the urging of her sister who lives here.

I have always been a huge fan of boxing and through the years have had many “favorite fighters,” but my all-time favorite is Muhammad Ali. I can remember my family gathering around the TV to watch one of his fights which was titled, “The Rumble in the Jungle.”